


On to Washington

by ceedeeandco (Scedasticity)



Category: Firefly
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-23 01:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scedasticity/pseuds/ceedeeandco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that never happened after the Independents won the Battle of Serenity Valley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prisoners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wash, [Zoe, Mal]

The Bellerophon Detainee Camp had started out a reasonably comfortable place to be, especially for the basically apolitical. Wash honestly wasn't sure what side he would have picked, given the chance, but he had been rather irked that the captain of his ship at the time hadn't bothered to _tell_ them they were running munitions for the Independent Faction. If he'd known that, he might have been able to find a more secretive route.

That had been a mental exercise he tried quite a lot during the first year of detention -- planning alternate routes which would have kept the _Manassas_ under the metaphorical radar of Alliance patrols.

He'd given up on that eventually. It had helped when the camp commandant had decided to clear him to fly the aircar down to the nearest town when prisoners -- er, detainees -- had day passes. It wasn't anything like the same, of course, but there were some interesting canyons along the way which were fun to take in an aircar, and it got him a few credits. His passengers stopped complaining fairly quickly.

The third year, he'd discovered there was a place in town that sold model dinosaurs of the same sort as the triceratops he'd been carrying around since flight school. He'd gotten a T-rex that same day, and started to keep track of his credits more carefully. It was a bit more difficult to save much, by this time, as the Alliance decided prisoners should have to pay for their food and shelter. Mostly they were hired out to nearby farms. Wash generally got to drive the tractor, though, and he got some hadrosaurs for half-price. Once they were shipped a short distance to a funny little moon where people juggled geese for fun.

By the fourth year, he was just wishing the war would _end_ , that one side or the other would win just so it would _stop_. This was not just so he could get out of the camp and back into the black where he belonged. Since many of his fellow prisoners were dedicated browncoats, they followed the war quite closely, and he heard quite a lot about the course of the fighting as the news came in. So many dead -- and for what? So the Alliance could control some economically backward planets? So the outlying planets could be misgoverned locally rather than centrally?

Unlike most of his fellow prisoners, he was just depressed when they heard about the Independent victory at Serenity Valley. The Alliance might have been able to conclusively beat the Independents there -- but it would take a long, long time for the Independents to conclusively beat the Alliance.

Throughout the fifth year, he could track the Alliance's increasing concern about the outcome of the war by the worsening tempers of the soldiers on guard -- well, it could as easily have been sorrow at their increasing losses as concern about future prospects. Near the end of the year, the Alliance offered a pardon to any man or woman willing to swear allegiance and offer the Alliance full service. Wash gave the offer serious thought, but he rather suspected "full service" would include combat, especially if he wanted to fly again. He wanted to get back to space more than he could say, but not enough to kill some other poor idiot.

The sixth year, things got a bit -- sticky. The browncoats were doing pretty well, but they still weren't what you could call _wealthy_ , and it seemed they weren't expending their scanty funds on their main POW camp on Regina. It didn't help that the terraforming on Regina had apparently produced some weird quirk that made everyone there get sick. Personally, Wash thought the Independents could have picked the camp's location more wisely. Surely they could have guessed that the Alliance wouldn't take it well when their imprisoned soldiers all got some degenerative disease with a silly name!

There followed a sort of prisoner-treatment game of "chicken," which couldn't have been much fun for anyone, but definitely wasn't any fun for the prisoners. First their day passes were revoked, then their rations were slashed, then their "privileges" drained away a few at a time -- outdoor exercise time, private showers, personal possessions, socialization, access to outside information. Wash managed to deal with most of this phlegmatically enough, but he really resented the loss of his dinosaurs.

It also got nerve-wracking when no one would tell them anything about what was going on. For all they knew, the Independents had slaughtered everyone on Regina and the Alliance was about to use them all as guinea pigs for biological weapons.

The seventh year was worse. Stuck in an increasingly cramped and stinky prison, with no dinosaurs, and no real understanding from anyone else, he had nothing to do but brood over how long it had been since he'd flown, and whether he'd be any good now if he ever got back out into the black. And it was also getting harder and harder to keep track of the days.

As far as he could tell, the seventh year was drawing to a close when the Independents raided Bellerophon. Most of the garrison of the camp was called away to the defense of Bellerophon Estates, and the remainder was easily overcome by the browncoat strike team. The liberation was not very orderly after that. Over three thousand confused, hungry prisoners trying to get answers from under fifty troops.

Wash ignored the chaos, and went looking for his dinosaurs.

He was prepared to break into the commandant's office, where it was rumored the man kept all the confiscated personal belongings which weren't valuable enough to fetch much. Hopefully the dinosaurs fell into that category. As it turned out, breaking and entering wasn't necessary -- someone else had already taken care of it. He gave the browncoats fighting the computer a courteous nod and wandered past them to a storeroom.

Judging from the number of bags, rumor had been a bit harsher than accurate about the commandant's treatment of prisoner property. It took him about half an hour to find the bag labeled WASHBURNE, HOBAN. And yes, there were his dinosaurs, and his old clothes, and his box of childhood treasures, with an Earth-That-Was colony ship embossed on the top. From the weight, it still held his old remote-controlled Swallow, with its fried chips and crunched nose -- the first ship he ever flew, had been the joke in flight school.

A while later, the browncoat corporal came in to see why he was crying.


	2. Agents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Operative, YoSaffBridge, Book, [Badger, Petaline]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter with major character death (presumably).

It said quite a lot that nearly three years after Serenity Valley, Persephone was still balancing atop the fence, casting coy glances both ways. No uniformed soldiers walked the streets, but a trained observer would see many pedestrians with a military gaits, speaking with accents from the Core to the Rim. They traded glares and had the occasional bar fight, but so far, neither had been invited to settle in. The governor was either very indecisive or very enamored of the benefits of neutrality. Bribes from black marketeers and smugglers alone, if properly saved, could give the woman a nice nest egg to retire with when the war inevitably got closer.

 _Retire, and leave the rest of the planet holding the bag, no doubt,_ thought the man currently calling himself Michael. Not that it made any difference to his job. _I'd like to retire someday._ He was here looking for a woman most recently calling herself Marguerite and previously known as Emily, Maria, Suzanne, and Yolanda -- among other things. She had absconded with a sealed data module containing highly classified information, and it was Michael's job to retrieve it.

The question was, had she already arranged to meet an agent of the Independent Faction to sell the information, or would she be killing time with her usual tricks? If the latter, there was only one likely target in Eavesdown -- Badger.

 

He spotted her almost as soon as he entered Badger's... den. She was sitting on the arm of the man's chair, playing Badger and everyone else like an orchestra. Intelligence reported that she'd been a con artist before venturing into freelance espionage, and he could well believe it. He just hoped it meant she hadn't met her Independent contact yet, to hand over the module. The agent hung around the sides of the room for a few hours, buying a few drinks and surreptitiously disposing of them, pretending to listen to the accordion-player. After a while he snagged the sleeve of a pretty brown-haired girl in a low-cut blouse and tight skirt.

"You want somethin', honey?" she drawled in a border accent. Definitely a whore. Probably some poor girl drawn in from the fringes of civilization by the lure of money and now trapped on Persephone, selling her body. "I got a room in back--"

"No," the man calling himself Michael said quickly. "I was wondering who that woman is -- over by Badger."

The whore looked. "Oh, that's Sally. She just got in a few days ago, she's stayin' here for a while. She -- oh, I wonder where she's goin'?"

The agent had seen "Sally's" eyes flicker to a wrist comm before she gave Badger a winning smile and started to work her way out of the room. He sent the brunette whore on her way and followed his target out of the building, sticking to the shadows as she sauntered casually away. No one challenged her, and no one saw her pursuer. Less than half an hour's walk from Badger's headquarters, she glanced casually over her shoulder, didn't spot the agent, and vanished into an alley. He followed, and looked.

There was Marguerite -- Sally -- matchless con artist she might be, but she hadn't heard him coming. The man with her, though, twisted on a heel to look back up the alley, and the agent caught his breath in surprise, for he knew the face. It was his... comrade. Former comrade. Ex-comrade.

The one who _had_ retired, without taking no for an answer, and, it now appeared, had retired all the way over to the Independents.

The other man's eyes widened, and he shoved Marguerite-Sally back. "Go!" he hissed, even as he drew a weapon.

His ex-comrade fired first, and his aim hadn't suffered for his years away, but the agent was in the best and newest body armor. They both ducked away from the next several shots. The agent heard Marguerite running away, disappearing out the other end of the alley. He fired again, and finally managed to get the other man down with a shot to the upper leg. He was bleeding heavily as the agent hurried over and kicked his gun away.

His ex-comrade gave him a grim smile, then a small hold-out pistol appeared in his hand and he shot himself in the head.

The agent cursed softly under his breath, then ran past the body to the other end of the alley. Marguerite was nowhere to be seen.

 

He searched her room, though he guessed she'd fled town. She'd left everything behind -- clothes, makeup, money... and the data module. He picked it up with some relief; apparently she hadn't had time to give it to his Independent counterpart.

But the seal was broken.

 

On a freighter joining a convoy bound for Ariel, a woman traveling under the name Sandra O'Malley congratulated herself on her narrow escape -- not that getting off a planet in a hurry with no money was much of a problem for _her_. Of course, she would have to lie low for a while, but she knew a few places, even in Alliance territory, where she could lie low in comfort.

And on a fast courier bound for Londinium, a man with neither name nor rank wrote a report detailing the destruction of the unsealed data module, the escape of Emily-Maria-Suzanne-Yolanda-Marguerite-Sally, and the death of the traitorous ex-operative. The last one would probably be considered enough to make up for the shortcomings of the first two. The agent considered this, and wished again he could retire.

And in Eavesdown, a brown-haired whore who had never called herself anything but Petaline slipped out of Badger's compound and down to the docks and a certain cargo ship. There she exchanged a few significant phrases with the captain, and was given a berth back to the nearest browncoat base on Santo, where the copied files she carried could be put to good use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my least favorite of these vignettes, but, whatever.


	3. Volunteers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fess Higgins, Jayne, [Kaylee, Monty]

The browncoat recruiters did not make frequent trips to Higgins' Moon -- in fact, after the first visit Magistrate Higgins threatened to join the Alliance if they ever came back, but with the Independent Faction firmly in control of all his neighbors, he wasn't really in a position to deliver ultimatums. So he had to tolerate the browncoats flying in every year or so and luring away as many of his youngest, strongest laborers as they could. It was going to be worse, this time -- the enlistment bounty had gone up again, enough that a mudder could legitimately buy his or her freedom with no previous savings. And if he tried to change the cost, or issue any other restrictions, the browncoat recruiters would sit up and take notice.

But that weren't the worst of it.

"You will do no such thing!" Magistrate Higgins bellowed, his face red as a tomato. "You won't last a week! They won't even take you!"

"I'll leave that up to them, I think," Fess replied, adjusting the strap of his carryall. "Goodbye, Father."

 

Head held high, he walked down the hill and through the mudder village to where the Independent troop transport waited. There were excited mudders everywhere, and -- there, there were the recruiters, two officers, a few NCOs, and enlisted men and women. Fess hurried over and addressed the officer. "Sir? My name is Fess Higgins, and I would like to join the Independent forces."

The bearded sergeant raised his eyebrows. "As in Magistrate Higgins?"

Fess was saved from having to reply by the officer, who held up a hand. "As long as he's eighteen, Monty, we don't care who his father is." She gave Fess an appraising look. "Do you have the tuition for officer's training?"

"I do, ma'am." He did have _some_ resources of his own, after all.

"Right, then, let's get you signed up. I'm Lieutenant Commander Shuang; this is Sgt. O'Malley, a.k.a. Monty." Shuang smirked. "Monty's a proper soldier. He's only flying with the recruiters until his leg heals up, then it's back to work."

The big man laughed. "I don't know, Commander. Next to more recruits, the front lines're lookin' mighty attractive just now."

"Maybe so." Shuang nodded to the other officer. "Lt. Pierce, here, will get you entered in the computer, Mr. Higgins."

Pierce was an unintimidating little man who gave Fess a pleasant nod and waved him over to the computer table being set up by a young woman in civilian clothing. Not a mudder, though -- she was far too clean for that. "Almost done, Recruit?" Pierce asked.

"Nearly," the girl said cheerfully. "Have you got volunteers already? This _is_ a good place." She connected one last cable and rose, brushing clay dust from her knees. "Now, I'll just see if it'll work..." The computer flared to life. "There you go, all nice and shiny." She beamed at Pierce, who smiled back.

"Thank you, Frye. All right, Higgins, I'll need your palmprint..."

The whole procedure didn't take long at all. Since Fess didn't have to go back to, say, buy out a contract with his enlistment bonus, he could sit in the shade of the troop transport and watch the other volunteers. Most were mudders, of course -- oh, his father was _not_ going to be happy, come tomorrow -- but there was one overseer signing on, and a few offworlders. Fess was almost the only one signed on as a future officer. The only other was a young mudder who caught Shuang's attention somehow. Besides the little engineer, he didn't see any recruits come _off_ the troopship.

The daylight was starting to fade when a big, burly offworlder shuffled up to Pierce. "Name's Bob," he mumbled.

Pierce, instead of handing across the book for the man's signature -- or possibly his mark X -- regarded him for a moment. He made a slight gesture behind his back, and Sergeant Monty tapped Shuang on the shoulder. "Have we met before, Mr. Bob?" Pierce asked mildly. "On Jiangyin, maybe? Only it was Mr. Mitch, then, I think."

Mr. Bob stared at Pierce, wide-eyed -- then turned and bolted. Sergeant Monty was after him in a flash -- bad leg or no bad leg -- and had him down before any of the enlisted men could shoot. Shuang politely asked the mudders she was interviewing to wait, then joined Pierce as "Mr. Bob" was frog-marched back.

"Is this him, Lieutenant?" Shuang asked.

"I think so, sir," Pierce replied. He hit a few controls, and both Pierce and Shuang studied the computer for a moment.

Shuang smiled in a way that reminded Fess of his father signing on another laborer, and turned to Sergeant Monty and Bob. "Well, Mr. _Cobb_ , it would seem you can't enlist, as you are already enlisted. Three times." She spoke loudly enough that her voice would carry to the mudders around them.

"Bounty jumping is a very serious offense, Mr. Cobb," Pierce put in.

"Shooting offense," rumbled Sergeant Monty.

"No," Shuang corrected, still smiling wolfishly, "that's the Alliance. We have other ways of dealing with bounty jumpers and deserters. Like sending them somewhere there's nowhere to desert _to_."

"Oh, no--" Cobb started.

"Monty, get him stowed. Pierce, get Mr. Cobb all entered for _outer_ border duty." She turned to directly address the mudders. "We can't afford to waste these bounties, ladies and gentlemen. If you sign on and can't seem to fight the Alliance, there's always room fighting the Rim-Reavers."


	4. Civilians

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mal, Zoe, [Inara, Kaylee, Tracy, Atherton Wing]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter requiring the non-con warnings. Everything is offpage and non-graphic.

Zoe came to get him in the wee hours of the morning, and Mal knew with one look at her face that the news was not good. With a groan, he flailed free from the squishy mattress he was drowning in. (Their platoon had been put up in what had been quite a nice hostelry -- at least 'til they got there -- and Mal felt its comforts were -- mixed. For example, the tub had more knobs and dials than the control cabin of their troop transport.) "What the gorram hell is wrong now?" he demanded, managing to get free of the bed. "The purplebellies back?"

She shook her head. "No, sir -- no enemy troops. Some of ours got into trouble here in town. Message wasn't too clear, but sounds like some are dead."

"Go-se!" Mal grabbed for his coat. This area of Soonal was _pacified_. _How_ had the troops managed to get into trouble now? "No one's told Wing, have they?"

"No." Zoe opened the door and led the way out into the hall.

"Good." Wing was their latest officer, a well-bred, well-dressed, well-groomed little idiot who had joined the army only well after things were looking up for the Independent Faction. He liked Mal about as much as Mal liked him, but being The Hero of Serenity Valley did have a few advantages.

Sentries were still on duty at the doors, most of them managing something like a salute. Outside he could smell trouble in the air, and see it in the little clumps of soldiers, and a few of local civs, whispering.

Tracy dashed up. "Sarge! You better come quick." He waved a hand urgently towards a large building up the hill. "Up there. I dunno what those _wang be dan duh biao-tze_ did, but--"

Mal frowned. He hadn't taken much notice of the place on the way in, but he sort of remembered-- "That's not--"

"Companion Guild House, sir," Zoe said tersely.

"Aw, hell." There was no way this was going to end well. He'd never thought much of Companions himself -- but he guessed High Command would not look kindly on seriously upsetting the Guild. He was going to have his work cut out for him getting his kids out of this.

They got to the main entrance of the House just as Sergeant Vidya Sindel came out, looking fit to spit bullets. She was trailed by several privates and a corporal Mal didn't recognize. As soon as the door closed behind them, Sindel turned on the corporal. "What were you _thinking_? Leaving _aside_ the consequences-- These are _civilians_ , corporal! This area was secured, a little foraging is one thing, stirring up the locals is something else. Do you know what we call this kind of behavior when the purplebellies occupy our towns? How you could approve this--" Sindel broke off, shaking her head. "If there were any justice, you'd be dead with the rest of them."

"Sindel!" Mal called. She seemed to know what was going on, anyway. "What the gorram hell happened here?"

She turned. "Reynolds. Zoe. Seems some of ours couldn't settle for just pillaging, and _despite_ the presence of some NCOs who _should_ have put a stop to it, came by here to--"

"They were just whores, Sergeant!" the corporal burst out. "Just rich, fancy, purplebelly whores!"

Yeah, this was headed where he'd really hoped it wasn't. "Did I hear something about deaths?"

"It seems Companions have ways of dealing with bastards who think 'No' means 'Yes'. Permanent-like." Sindel glared at the corporal. "Since Pratt here is the only _surviving_ NCO in this _da tuo da bien_ , she will be coming with me to explain to our officers what happened to the rutting company."

Mal was not quite clear on what had happened himself, but he wasn't going to push Vidya now. "You know how many of mine were involved?"

She shook her head. "Ain't done head counts -- or body counts. Looked like a coupla dozen total."

Mal nodded grimly, and waved her on. He'd have to tell Wing himself, later, after the man woke up, but let Sindel take the lead. He waited a moment for her to hustle the hapless Corporal Pratt away, then turned back to Zoe and Tracy. "Tracy, _you_ wanna tell me what gorram happened here?"

From the look on his face, Tracy wanted no such thing, but he knew better than to refuse. "Well, you know we were havin' a victory celebration..."

"Yes..." Everyone camped in the hostelry had heard the victory celebration.

"Well, some've the boys decided that it wouldn't be complete without some whores. So since that big fancy house was just up the hill and all, they went up to get some."

"Then what?"

"The head bitch threw 'em out. Said none've the whores wanted any _clients_. Like our money wasn't good enough for the purplebelly bitches."

"Did they _say_ so?" Mal asked quickly. That would leastwise go a way towards explaining why things had gotten out of control.

Tracy deflated a little. "M'not sure, Sarge. I didn't go with 'em. I was talkin' to one've our girls in the Engineering Corps. She's--"

"Fine. Shiny." And just as well, as far as Tracy was concerned. "And?"

"I'm not rightly sure, Sarge. I was busy, like I said. But some of ours went back up to argue with the head bitch, and next thing we knew down there, Mickey comes runnin' in yellin' that the whores are killin' them, and just falls over and... dies." Tracy swallowed. "It was pretty ugly, Sarge. I just came up here then, along with half the rest of the party, and everything started happenin' at once..."

"Right." Hell. Mickey was -- had been -- in their platoon -- a good soldier, mostly, if a mite overfond of the rotgut. "Guess I'd better go in and survey the damage. Zoe, you're with me. Tracy, stay out here and keep everyone out, excepting NCOs and any officers who deign to show their faces."

"Right, Sarge."

It was much quieter inside the House -- Sindel had probably ordered everyone to calm down. The fancy carpet had been covered in mud, and the walls defaced with graffiti and stripped of hangings. On the other side of the big foyer, a woman in an inside-out medic's uniform was using one of those hangings to cover a still form.

"Body count?" Mal asked.

The medic looked up wearily. "Sergeant. This makes twenty-two dead from the Companions' -- thing. No deaths from the brawling amongst ours, though one head injury came close. Another five'll die within the hour unless the House doctor can be talked into coughing up the antidote. If there is one." She shook her head. "Damned foolishness."

"Did Sergeant Sindel already try?" Mal asked. Under the circumstances, he'd give her better odds on talking the House doctor into anything.

"No, Sergeant. I did, but she -- the doctor -- says there isn't one. Not sure she's telling the truth, but I've been trying general antitoxins instead of wasting time badgering her. For all the good it's done me." Getting to her feet, the medic pointed up a grand staircase. "She's up there, with the House mother, if you want to try."

Mal supposed he ought to, though he was only getting more disgusted with everyone involved in this disaster. Sure, they were rich purplebelly whores, but that didn't mean it was all right to rape them. Maybe he could convince the House doctor they needed to survive to stand trial. "Right. Zoe?"

The reason the House doctor was with the House mother became clear as he entered the room -- the older woman had been shot. The doctor was attempting to treat the gut wound while another woman, with rumpled hair and a blackening eye, argued with the soldier on guard.

"We owe you _nothing_! We will not lift one _finger_ to help any of you!" she snarled.

Well, perhaps not so much "argued with" as "screeched at". Mal wished Sindel had hung around. "Private, report," he ordered.

The man managed a creditable salute. "Nothing to report, Sergeant, not since Sergeant Sindel left. The b-- uh, ladies ain't willin' to help us." He paused. "Sergeant Sindel ordered me to just stand guard, but I could--"

"That'll be all, Private," Mal said hastily, not wanting to let the man offer anything. "The corporal and I have things under control." Sort of. "Go help the medics." As soon as the man was gone, Mal turned to the standing Companion. "Look, er, Miss..." He trailed off, and when she didn't reply, prompted, "Your name?"

She blinked, a little surprised. "Serra. Inara Serra."


	5. Auxiliaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River, Simon

She'd hacked an abandoned aircar to fly most of the way there, but a klick away, she'd lost control after a concussive blast and crunched into a restaurant -- _right_ into a restaurant, skidding to a halt amidst scattered tables and smashed chairs. Fortunately it wasn't a supporting wall. Also fortunately, its structural integrity had already been severely compromised, so smashing through it hadn't been too bad. She hadn't gotten a very good look before she and the aircar crashed through, but it looked like it had been struck by falling debris from one of the atmospheric fighters.

After a pause to steady her breathing, she kicked open the aircar hatch and picked her way through the shards and splinters and broken glass vases. A brief detour through the kitchen yielded a bag of mostly-thawed dumplings and, more crucial, some bottled water. Then, since the long axis of the building pointed the right way, she took the opportunity to avoid aerial bombardment for a while and ran through a service passage in the basement.

After that, she had to venture outside again. The bombs sounded farther away, but the air was smoky, and she could hear -- yes, that was hand weapon fire, and -- grenades? Yes, she thought grenades. The ground fighting was close, here. She ran faster.

She almost ran into a platoon of soldiers who did _not_ seem to be looking where they were going. She leapt back into the doorway of a clothiers and let them pass. Retreating. The rumors had been right -- they were losing the city. None of them paid her any mind, for all she could have been a looter or a fifth columnist or just a citizen in need of help. Well, it was sad in theory, but right now it was convenient. If the front line was that close, she had no time to waste.

She'd been worried about how to get in, but the visitors' entrance (she'd come there for lunch, sometimes, before the war got _truly_ close) was unguarded. She had to hit the manual control to get the door to open, but after that there was no trouble. The lobby beyond was deserted, not a receptionist, sentry, or nurse in sight. She supposed not many people would have been coming in on foot. The lift might require access codes, and could well be tied up with more urgent use, so she took the stairs. It was only two floors up, anyway.

The correct floor, when she got there, was chaotic. There were people bleeding on the corridor floor, tagged with green or black. (Triage markers, of course -- the reds would be being seen to, as much as they could.) Many were in uniform, but not all, not nearly all -- especially not tagged in green, and none on their feet. Not a few of the black-tagged were dead, unmoved, uncovered. There didn't seem to be as many staff in the hall as there should have been, and the few there were didn't pay her any mind. There were other civilians about, who'd brought family in, she supposed, so she didn't stand out.

He was in the second ward she checked, bent over a blood-soaked, wailing child. She ducked in and leaned against the wall, surveying the room. Full beds, full floors, and not enough orderlies, let alone nurses, let alone doctors. No wonder he'd stopped answering their father's increasingly frantic demands that he come home.

She waited quietly, listening.

A nurse motioned for a couple of others to come over, and when they did, drew them into a huddle. "All right, I don't want anyone panicking, but we need to get the civilian walking wounded -- and the people who brought them in, who shouldn't be here anyway -- down to the subterranean levels," she ordered. "Start shooing them down there a few at a time. We don't need a stampede on the stairs."

A gray-faced, red-eyed surgeon came in, and handed a crate of vials to an anesthesiologist. "Here. We had some in the senior break room, it should last us for a little while." After the anesthesiologist nodded and hurried away, the surgeon leaned against the wall, eyes closed. "Dear God, is it not enough they abandon us to the Independents' mercies, must they _plunder_ our supplies before they go?"

"Their patrols can't be very good," one orderly hissed to another. "If we leave now, we can slip through and find someplace to wait, and they'll never even notice us."

"Yeah? And what if they do? At least here we're _medical personnel_. Out there we're just out-of-uniform auxiliaries. They could shoot us for spies if they wanted."

"I don't even _have_ a uniform--"

And there, finally, was the child being carried off to Recovery, or somewhere, and her brother stepping back from the table, swaying. She was there to steady him before the nurse was.

He blinked at her. "River? What are you doing here?"

"I came looking for you, dummy," she retorted, and smacked him on the shoulder -- gently, so as not to knock him over.

"You shouldn't be here, it's not safe--" He stopped, perhaps realizing how ridiculous his words were. "How did you get here, anyway?"

She guessed that "stolen aircar" wouldn't go over very well, although in the unlikely event that the Smythes came back looking for it, they'd probably assume browncoats had taken it. "Walked, mostly. It did get a bit tense at times."

"They're not far off, now, probably less than two hours away -- or they were -- what time is it?"

"03:21," she replied promptly.

"Oh. Inside a half-hour, then." Simon stripped off his bloody gloves, hands trembling with more than fatigue. "Maybe it's better you're here, after all. We've lasted through the bombardment, and if you go down to the subbasement--"

She smacked him again. "I'm waiting it out with you, Simon."

"Things could get -- messy, up here, River." He indicated the incapacitated Alliance soldiers all around them. "They're just going to come in and see enemies, and I don't know what they'll do. And with most of the hospital personnel technically military auxiliaries--"

Auxiliaries. What an _ambiguous_ term. Lately it seemed to include almost everyone between twenty and fifty who hadn't already been shipped off to the front lines in one capacity or another. Simon had escaped medic duty only because his supervisor, unwilling to lose such a promising young surgeon to "the meat grinder," had pitched a fit, and their parents -- who'd become so jumpy since the war got worse that they wouldn't even let River go away to school -- had paid, and paid highly, for a substitute. Instead, he was an ambiguous auxiliary, and no one knew how the browncoats would interpret that.

She knew how Simon interpreted it. Given any choice at all, he would adhere to the Hippocratic oath, not any loyalty oath.

"I'm waiting it out with you," River repeated. And if the browncoats didn't appreciate the value of an apolitical surgeon, she'd just have to explain it to them.

Besides, there was no knowing whether she had anything else left -- what had happened to their parents, waiting in their estate behind security fields that might protect against prowlers, but not pinpoint bombs. River couldn't really blame them for not joining the stampede of evacuees to the dubious -- very dubious -- safety of the public shelters. Easy enough to see why they were sitting in the parlor with a concerto turned up loud enough to drown out outside noises. It wasn't a bad picture of them to carry away, if it was to be the last. They had wanted her with them, and Simon. But her place was with her brother, and his place was at the hospital.

One of the nurses brought Simon a mug of something hot and probably laced with prescription-level stimulants. He knocked it back with a grimace, squeezed River's shoulder, then reached for fresh gloves and headed for the next red-tagged patient, a charred wreck of a human being. River withdrew to the door and stood watch, waiting for the browncoats to come.


End file.
